Sustainability orientation has a positive effect on startups' initial valuation and a negative effect on their post-funding financial performance. All else equal, improving sustainability orientation by one standard deviation increases startups' funding amount by 28 % and decreases investors' abnormal returns per post-funding year by 16 %. The results hold in a large sample of blockchain-based crowdfunding campaigns, also known as Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) or token offerings. A key contribution is a machine-learning approach to assess startups' Environment, Society and Governance (ESG) properties from textual data, which we make readily available at www.SustainableEntrepreneurship.org.

可持续发展导向对初创公司的初始估值有积极影响，对其融资后的财务业绩有负面影响。在其他条件相同的情况下，将可持续发展导向提高一个标准差会使初创公司的融资额增加 28%，并使投资者在融资后每年的异常回报率降低 16%。结果存在于大量基于区块链的众筹活动样本中，也称为初始硬币产品 (ICO) 或代币产品。一个关键贡献是一种机器学习方法，可以从文本数据中评估初创公司的环境、社会和治理 (ESG) 属性，我们在 www.SustainableEntrepreneurship.org 上提供了这些数据。